LO
Software tester / QA engineer — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Validation Engineers · Computer Systems Engineers/Architects · Penetration Testers · Computer Programmers · Computer Hardware Engineers · Blockchain Engineers · Information Security Engineers
In the official classification#
Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers
Fit with this page: same job
Job Zone 4: considerable preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 15-1253.00 (Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- ProgrammingVery important
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- Quality Control AnalysisImportant
- Systems EvaluationImportant
- Operations AnalysisImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- Systems AnalysisImportant
- CoordinationImportant
Knowledge
- Computers and ElectronicsVery important
- English LanguageVery important
- MathematicsImportant
- Engineering and TechnologyImportant
- DesignImportant
- Education and TrainingImportant
Work activities
- Working with ComputersExtremely important
- Getting InformationExtremely important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesVery important
- Processing InformationVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
- Analyzing Data or InformationVery important
Abilities
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Oral ExpressionVery important
- Problem SensitivityVery important
- Deductive ReasoningVery important
- Inductive ReasoningVery important
Essential skills
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- Active ListeningVery important
- SpeakingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
- WritingVery important
Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 2 backed by a verified event, 3 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Four kinds of source, and each block says which: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.